Collage

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

A decade seems a good point to change things around, and so whilst I'll still have an online space for showing works in process through to completion, how it looks, feels, and runs will be different. I've been here, High Up in the Trees, for ten years. Time to construct a new tree house more in keeping with how I share what I see and think and do.

For now, I will be keeping High Up in the Trees as an accessible archive, keeping it just as is, for I've many fond memories of this space. It has transformed from a rather warty, small file size, personal scrapbook to a more considered place. I have learned more of how to communicate, as my pieces for Fjord Review are a testament to, and I've refined my visual sensibilities. From a humble platform, I feel I have found my feet, and now I am keen to eke out a new spot rather than limp along.

Thank-you to everyone who has stopped by here throughout its various incarnations, and to the loyal hearts from start to finish. I have enjoyed creating this space with and for you. My links list points to many blogs now closed, removed, or cobweb-cloaked, left to languish with a forlorn 'March 2013' post on the front door. (Am I suffering from a bout of nostalgia when I say they remind me of ghost towns or something of ash-cloaked Pompeii?)

I had wanted to give High Up in the Trees a fitting wake, but sadly most of its friends have already passed. And so before I grow too sentimental about what blogging was in the early days before the instant share of instagram, twitter, and snapchat, for when comments were to be read, before the tiny violins do play: thank-you. Really, thank-you. Thank-you.

And so, I guess, if this is to be a wake, we need refreshments as we mourn. And I have just the space for that. High Up in the Trees has been reincarnated as MARGINALIA, and who knows how it will grow.

Monday, 02 May 2016

Monday night, just time enough for a quick gallop through the Melbourne Art Book Fair. For a whirl about the Great Hall, before the edges soften further and fade altogether. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you crazy flash. Sweep, hare, fly! Here, below, a little of how it looked from our stand at the fair. And perhaps a little, too, of how it felt. Giddy. Exhilarating. And exhausting. Good hallmarks, all. We are beyond thrilled that copies of our artists' book, Because I Like You, are now bound for the National Library of Australia, the State Library of Victoria, and the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, as well as private collections. And speechless that The Company You Keep, an artists' book comprised of fifteen Salvaged Relatives collages on cabinet cards, is destined for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. The stuff of dreams!

Thursday, 07 April 2016

A love of collage led to a love of ‘collaging’ with words. More specifically, collaging with words about dance. Combining two things I love in the one place, for the time being at least. To me, the means are the same: an image is arranged until it can be ‘read’, until it can communicate something close to what I saw (in the case of dance) or see (in the case of a collage created from ephemera).

In the collages within Cutting the Collection, we have layered two or more elements one atop the other. In echo of the process of creating collages by hand, layers serve to mask or reveal, and all in some way to alter. And so you have illustrated costume designs replete with ruffled collars and long feathers atop photographs of stage sets for musical comedies. At first glance it might appear as though we have blanked out what was once a part of the scene, but the closer you look, the more you will see that the additional silhouettes are from a different period or of a different scale. A circus poster collides with a set from a vaudeville show. Our interest here is shape, yes, but mainly the new story it tells.

Pared back, in this way, whilst making these works we were thinking about the ephemeral nature of dance; the thrill of a live performance and the trace it leaves; notions of recording what was, whilst not ever able to capture or document it fully; and the importance of such collections. The transitory nature of all performance, filtered through our own memory of it or through the imagined memories documented by others before us, in the sense of the earlier material held within the Performing Arts Collection, is something we wish to explore further.

A live performance cannot be siphoned in its entirety into a recording (unless specifically created and/or staged for film). It cannot be ‘relived’ fully just by looking at a piece of staging; the work was beautifully fragmented before the curtain closed. The very idea of something so impossible to harness holds great appeal to us. Serving as an exquisite metaphor of life’s cycle, what occurred on the stage at the very moment can never be seen nor felt again. We are left with trace memories, borrowed or otherwise, with costumes that yellow and fade; we are left with silhouettes that tell a little of what was. This “state of vanishing,” as the choreographer Crystal Pite described, is both powerful and quite tragic.

Working digitally, we were able to cut up precious artefacts, and such temptation we can never refuse. Wish fulfilment! Stop the clock! Rewind!

{Two costume designs, one with gold trims and pink flowers, and the other with green sash and four strands of beads under the chin, by Attilio Comelli for act two from the musical The Girl From Utah, c.1913, upon a photograph of the stage set for the musical comedy Follow Through, 1930 or 1932.}

{Black and white photograph of Patricia Redmond, performing as ‘Latasha,’ upon a poster sign for Holdens Circus’ Saturday Big Matinee, and a black and white photograph of ‘Carter’s’ featuring Patti (Patricia) Redmond and Owen Laurence.}

{Photograph of Mona and Beryl Ferguson in costume for Going Up, 1919, upon a programme for A Tivoli Show presented by the Allied Works Council (Amenities Branch), featuring Jenny Howard, Tibby Roberts, Eddie Marcel, Marie Doran, Percy King, June Holms, the Loretta Twins, Fred Brown, Flannagan, Ted and Flo James, Mavis Reed, 1940.}

{Poster for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Circus featuring Con Colleano, ‘Wizard of the Wire’, United States of America, c.1930s, upon a black and white photograph featuring Ursula Irving and Gordon Girdwood.}

{Costume design, replete with orange sash, silver trims, and light green fan, by Attilio Comelli for act two from the musical The Girl From Utah, c.1913, upon a photograph of the stage set for the musical comedy Follow Through, 1930 or 1932.}

All images borrowed and cut with permission from the Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne. Thank-you for having us.

Following on from our recent artists' book, A deck of Salvaged Relatives, and especially for a forthcoming group exhibition, Animal Instinct, Louise and I have created four new works comprised of pairs.

It is something, this back and forth notion, we are toying with more and more — a collage in response to a print, a drawing in response to a collage — and we like the ground it is revealing as our collaboration evolves.

In the borrowed evening jacket inspired by the heavens, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, c. 1937, with an American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)andCloser to natural (American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus))

In the borrowed jacket from The hunt, Act I, Giselle, designed by Alexandre Benois, c. 1910, with a Golden angwantibo (Arctocebus aureus)andCloser to natural (Golden angwantibo (Arctocebus aureus))

Closer to natural (Three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus))andIn a borrowed costume for Columbine from Carnival, designed by Léon Bakst, c. 1942, with a Three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus)

"Metropolis Gallery is excited to present Animal Instinct, an exhibition exploring how we view animals and at times appropriate their characteristics to make sense of the human species.

Since prehistoric times and throughout art history the animal has appeared in many guises in mythology and storytelling, and the attributes of animals have supplied artists with a wealth of inspiration and artistic metaphor. This exhibition will present diverse interpretations by a number of artists in a variety of mediums."

Tuesday, 08 December 2015

{From when it was the 7th of December no matter which way you looked at it.}

bouquet |bʊˈkeɪ, bəʊˈkeɪ, ˈbʊkeɪ|noun1 a bunch of flowers presented in the form of a collage during the lead up to Christmas.

Eight December days in and our advent calendar continues to sprout whiskers, new shoots, and the odd long tail. In case you missed it, here is a look at what was, from the 1st of December through to the 8th. Created in equal parts for the fun of it and for you, an advent calendar with the intention to see you lightly to Christmas Day.

Monday, 30 November 2015

or•na•mentnoun |ˈôrnəmənt|a thing used to adorn something but usually having no practical purpose, esp. a small object such as 120 hand-cut paper decorations.• decoration added to embellish Milly Sleeping

From a Columbine Cup from Nuremberg, 1573-1580, the convex curve of a bell we made. A drawing of bronze French handbell from the second half of the 12th century became another of our paper baubles. From a lidded beer tankard, c. 1540, came a green lantern, while another was fashioned from a table clock of rock crystal and silver guilt, c. 1750.

Six different ornamental shapes hand-cut and decorated with our brand new badges. Part Middle Ages and Renaissance to present day, with an owl and a donkey. Making treasure from treasures and all especially for Milly Sleeping, in something of its own beautiful working pattern.

And while you are there, please do remember that our NOVEMBER SALE still has legs. Simply enter the code word 'REBOOTED' upon checkout to receive 30%-off your whole order on anything in our online store from now until the 30th of November.

+ Edvard Hagerup Grieg composed the song Våren (Spring, also known as The Last Spring) as his Opus 33, no.2, to words by Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. “Once more I saw winter before spring drove it away; again I was able to see the branches of the cherry tree blossom. Once more I saw the ice as it thawed. I saw the snow melt and the rapids in the brook foaming. Once more I saw the green grass and the flowers. Once more I heard the spring bird sing to the sun and the summer. One day, I will bathe in the spring air that fills my eyes, and there I will find a home. Everything that spring has brought me, the flowers I gathered, all seem the spirits of my forefathers dancing and sighing! And so under the birches and pine boughs I found a springtime riddle. And the sound of the flute that I carved seems as though I am weeping.”

Lest you missed our recent newsletter or the like, in celebration of a corner turned (at last! Hurrah! Three cheers for Louise!), and in appreciation of your love and kindness also expressed concerning our dear old beloved dog, Mr. Percy's deteriorating health, we are having a SALE.

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Traveller dear,

Louise Jennison and I make artists’ books, we make all sorts of things, and most usually we make things on paper. Collaboration comes naturally to us both; it is an enjoyable process that yields treasure not possible without the other. Working side-by-side, as we do from our home-based studio in Melbourne, Australia, it is a pattern we are familiar with, a path we are delighted to tread, seeing what new scenario evolves. Collaboration throws up the unexpected, and what is not to like about that?

When not with scissors in hand, I can be found writing about ballet and contemporary dance for Fjord Review, and (upon occasion) painting and collage for RMIT.

With paper sufficient to cover the moon and sincerely yours, Gracia Haby
(High Up in the Trees since 2006)